My OBE Quest – Page 2

A year or two later I tried using a video tape from the same company to induce an out-of-body experience. Like the cassette tapes, the video used a self-hypnosis technique, but this one required the subject to watch a video screen that simulated a flight through space. The video never brought about a projection, either. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that in order to have an OBE you needed to have your eyes closed.

I was discouraged but undaunted. Occasionally, I’d run across people who would tell me of their out-of-body experiences and this kept my interest in learning OBE high.

There was the woman who described her experiences as a child, waking up in the middle of the night in the out-of-body state. She would find herself in the darkness of her front yard, hovering just above the lawn. The feel of the dewy grass on her back would wake her up.

Then there was the friend of my parents who related his experience in a college dorm room. While reading a book on Buddhism he asked himself, “Who am I?” and shortly thereafter found himself looking down on his physical body.

And then there had been the old man who lived next door to my nonno and nonna. He related stories of being held captive in a prisoner of war camp during World War II with Cochise’s great grandson. At nighttime the great grandson would help him get out of body and together they would explore beyond the confines of camp.

I myself still retained childhood memories, as many people do, of falling dreams that took place just after dropping off to sleep, dreams that were purportedly memories of childhood projections. I knew it was possible to have an out-of-body experience, yet the question remained: How to provoke it consciously?

Then in the summer of 1987, about a week after school let out for the summer, I had a powerful, life-changing dream; a dream that I would later recognize to be an out-of-body experience. I had read about dream-induced OBEs before, and after this experience I focused on this method as a means to project. If all OBEs could be as profound as the one I had that morning, I had to experience it again.

Several months later, I awoke in the middle of the night in a paralyzed state. My mind had become conscious while my body remained asleep, hence the inability to move. Somewhere above me, as if coming from just beyond my bedroom ceiling, I could hear voices. There was a woman’s voice and others. Later I wouldn’t remember what they said, only that they were talking about me. Within seconds, I felt myself rising up and out of my body, even as I tried to stop it. Unfortunately, I have no memory of what happened after I separated from my physical body.

So I began practicing with an OBE dream-induction technique. This method called for becoming lucid in a dream and then converting the dream into an out-of-body experience. Yet every time I found myself lucid dreaming, I would will myself back to the locale of my 1987 OBE. I had dozens of lucid dreams there, but very rarely did anything profound happen. Certainly, nothing matching the intensity of that original experience in 1987.

During my senior year of college, I was dozing on the couch one Saturday night while reading Dreams and the Projection of Consciousness by Jane Roberts. Shortly after falling asleep, I found myself flying in front of my house. Intent on having an OBE, I willed myself up into the sky and began rocketing through space.

Six stars appeared in front of me, forming a hexagon. Flying through the circle of stars, I saw another circle, then another. I was flying through a tunnel of stars to some unknown destination.

Eager to take control of the experience, I demanded, Show me my soulmate! An instant later something resembling pea soup splattered and ran down my field of vision. I found myself hovering in a bedroom looking down on a young woman with dark hair. I examined the furniture in the room and how it was organized, hoping to remember it later. Not long after, I returned to my body. It was the closest thing to date that I could call a consciously provoked OBE.

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